Insect pests that are rapidly adapting to genetically engineered crops threaten agriculture worldwide. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals the success of a surprising strategy for countering this problem: Hybridizing genetically engineered cotton with conventional cotton reduced resistance in the pink bollworm, …
A group of 77 scientists worldwide have sequenced the complete genome of barley, a key ingredient in beer and single malt Scotch. The research, 10 years in the making, was recently published in the journal Nature. Barley is grown throughout the world, with Russia, Germany, France, Canada, and Spain being …
The most popular varieties of tea—including black tea, green tea, Oolong tea, white tea, and chai—all come from the leaves of the evergreen shrub Camellia sinensis, otherwise known as the tea tree. Despite tea’s immense cultural and economic significance, relatively little is known about the shrub behind the tea leaves. …
Optimizing plant architecture to increase yield, stress tolerance, and water use efficiency (WUE) is a major challenge for modern agricultural biotechnology. Gibberellins are growth hormones known to be directly related to plant height and tillering, which in turn are directly related to grain yield in cereals. GA 2-oxidase is a …
A team of researchers headed by Professor Richard Michelmore, director of the Genomic Center at the University of California, Davies, published in Nature Communications, the assembled genome of lettuce (Lactuca sativa), which is the most valuable fresh vegetable and one of the 10 most valuable crops in the US with …
Biodiesel production in the U.S. from vegetable oils has increased substantially during the past decade. However, its further increase is limited by the low amounts of oil produced per hectare from temperate oilseed crops. Recently novel transgenic sugarcane has been developed to accumulate both sugars and lipids in stems, making …
University of Copenhagen and Bayer CropScience have successfully developed a new oilseed crop that is much more resistant to heat, drought and diseases than oilseed rape. The breakthrough was published in the journal Nature Biotechnology. The mustard plant is similar to oilseed rape in many ways. It looks like a …
Scientists from the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus University, Denmark have developed and patented the new type of wheat with a specific ability to increase the digestibility of phosphorus and other important minerals. Minerals such as phosphorus are often tightly bound in phytate. The enzyme phytase helps to …
Under partnership between Agrobioinstitute, Sofia and the bio-farm Amitica Ltd, Kresna, the Bulgarian tomato cultivar Pako Orange was grown successfully under organic conditions. The first bio-seeds were produced. Production of bio-juices and bio-purees from tomato Paco Orange are planned. Tomato cultivar Pako-Orange was developed by methods of classical plant breeding-interspecies …
Researchers at the University of Arizona have found a promising way to prevent the loss of millions of tons of crops to a fungus each year, offering the potential to dramatically improve food security, especially in developing countries. The team’s approach uses transgenic corn plants that produce small RNA molecules …
